HR Works: Why Workplace Diversity & Inclusion Are More Critical Than Ever in 2017

Summary

In a compelling episode of HR Works, host Steve Bruce delves into why workplace diversity and inclusion are more crucial today than ever. Joined by Susan Scott, founder and CEO of Fierce, the discussion centers around the expanded definition of diversity in 2017, now encompassing generational differences, political ideologies, and gender identity. With a fun and engaging dialogue, they explore the importance of inclusion, illustrating how diversity of thought can drive organizational success and innovation. The episode is a treasure trove of insights on building a culture that values diverse perspectives, the role of millennials in redefining diversity, and the need for courageous conversations around discrimination.

Highlights

• Discover why diversity now encompasses everything from gender identity to political ideology. 🌐
• Learn how millennials are reshaping workplace inclusion with their unique perspectives. 👫
• Understand the critical role of diversity of thought in tackling organizational challenges. 🧠
• Find out the surprising statistics behind discrimination in today's workplace. 📊
• Explore actionable strategies for fostering an inclusive and diverse work environment. 📈

Key Takeaways

• Diversity isn't just about race and gender anymore; it's a vast spectrum including political and generational differences. 🌈
• Millennials play a crucial role in pushing for more inclusive workplaces, thanks to their diverse upbringing. 👶
• Encouraging diversity of thought is as important as physical diversity for true innovation. 💡
• Having those tough, honest conversations in the workplace can prevent bigger issues down the line. 💬
• Companies that ignore diversity may face serious red flags, from a lack of innovation to persistent groupthink. 🚩

Overview

Step into the world of HR with Steve Bruce as he unpacks the evolving concept of diversity with Susan Scott, a thought leader in executive coaching. Susan's bold approach challenges assumptions and encourages embracing vast differences not only in appearance but in ideas, crucial for the workplace of 2017 and beyond.

Dive deep into the minds of millennials, as their approach to diversity and inclusion stems from a background rich in variations and acceptance. Their perspectives are essential for crafting workplaces where everyone feels a sense of belonging, free from the yoke of outdated biases.

This HR Works episode stirs a call to action in the corporate world. It's a reminder of the significance of confronting uncomfortable truths and diversifying not just the workforce, but thought processes. Organizations are urged to reflect on who has a seat at the table and how all voices can be harnessed for collective success.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Welcome The chapter introduces the podcast HR Works with host Steve Bruce. It highlights the podcast's purpose of providing clear, relevant, and actionable information tailored for HR professionals. The intro sets the stage for delivering best practices and essential knowledge needed in the human resources field.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Evolution of Diversity The chapter titled 'Evolution of Diversity' discusses the changing definitions and scope of diversity within organizations as of 2017. Initially, diversity focused on race, ethnicity, and gender. However, it has broadened to include aspects such as generational differences, political ideologies, and gender identity. The chapter suggests consulting with experts to understand these changes.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Defining Diversity and Inclusion The chapter discusses the current perspective on diversity and its role in organizational success as of 2017. Susan Scott, founder and CEO of Fierce, is introduced as a guest. Susan is known for her bold and practical approach to executive coaching and leadership development, with over two decades of experience encouraging people to speak openly about challenging topics.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Importance of Diverse Workforce in 2017 The chapter focuses on the importance of having a diverse workforce, highlighting insights from Susan, who founded a company called 'fierce' in 2001. With her extensive experience in facilitating CEO think tanks and engaging in numerous conversations with senior executives, Susan emphasizes that while no single conversation can guarantee a change in various aspects of life or business, any conversation holds the potential to do so. Through her company, Susan continues to share her expertise and insights with her clients, underscoring the value and impact of communication and diverse perspectives in a business context.
• 06:00 - 09:00: Implications of Discrimination This chapter discusses the implications of discrimination within the context of thought leadership and modern diversity definitions. The dialogue takes place between Susan, a keynote speaker and author, and Steve, the host of HR Works. Susan begins the conversation by updating the concept of diversity as of 2017, emphasizing that it includes all the various ways humans differ from one another.
• 09:00 - 13:00: Encouraging Dialogue and Addressing Discrimination The chapter titled 'Encouraging Dialogue and Addressing Discrimination' emphasizes the importance of being open, welcoming, respectful, and curious towards others. It suggests that by embracing these attitudes and behaviors, everyone stands to benefit. The chapter differentiates between the concepts of inclusion and diversity, indicating that while they are often mentioned together, they are distinct ideas.
• 13:00 - 16:00: Beyond Training: Building a Diversity-Friendly Environment The chapter discusses the importance of not just having a diverse workforce but also ensuring that inclusion is actively practiced. It highlights the issue where diversity is present, but important decision-making is still dominated by a select group, referred to as 'The Usual Suspects.' The chapter emphasizes that diversity alone is not enough; true inclusion means recognizing and valuing different perspectives and ensuring every member feels accepted, even if they look different from the majority.
• 16:00 - 24:00: Consequences of Ignoring Diversity The chapter discusses the importance of having diverse perspectives in decision-making and problem-solving within companies. It emphasizes that overlooking diversity can lead to missed opportunities for meaningful contributions and innovative solutions. The conversation highlights the need for multiple competing viewpoints to ensure comprehensive and effective decision outcomes.
• 24:00 - 31:00: Measurement and Impact of Diversity This chapter focuses on the measurement and impact of diversity within a company. It highlights the importance of conversations in determining company actions and outcomes. The core idea is that who is included in these conversations significantly influences what decisions are made and implemented. The chapter emphasizes the role of inclusivity in facilitating diverse perspectives in the decision-making processes.
• 31:00 - 36:00: Saying the Things That Can't Be Said The chapter titled 'Saying the Things That Can't Be Said' explores the growing interest and critical nature of diversity in the workforce, particularly as of 2017. It references a workplace survey on diversity and inclusion which reveals that over 40% of respondents think their organizations would benefit from increased diversity. This sentiment is even more pronounced among younger respondents aged 18 to 29, with the percentage rising to 55%. The chapter underscores the importance and evolving perspectives on diversity within organizations.
• 36:00 - 41:00: Conclusion and Book Promotion This chapter discusses the changing perspectives on diversity and inclusion among Millennial employees, who make up 80% of the workforce at the company 'fears'. It highlights that Millennials have been raised in environments where diversity and inclusion are the norms, leading them to see these values differently compared to earlier generations. The speaker appreciates this evolution, drawing a personal connection by mentioning the progressive views on diversity held by their own children.

HR Works: Why Workplace Diversity & Inclusion Are More Critical Than Ever in 2017 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] hi everyone and welcome to HR Works brought to you by blr I'm your host Steve Bruce HR Works provides clear relevant actionable information on topics that matter to HR professionals when you're armed with best practices Plus the knowledge to keep your
• 00:30 - 01:00 organization in compliance HR Works we're particularly interested in how the definition of diversity has evolved and expanded and what the term really means in 2017 traditionally diversity dealt with r race and ethnicity and then gender but now the term seems to Encompass just about everything from generational differences to political ideologies to gender identity so we wanted an expert's
• 01:00 - 01:30 perspective on what diversity looks like in 2017 and its role in organizational success to help us we've asked Susan Scott founder and CEO of executive development and training firm Fierce to join us known for her bold yet practical approach to Executive coaching and leadership development Susan has been challenging people to say things that can't be said for over two decades she
• 01:30 - 02:00 founded fierce in 2001 after 13 years leading CEO think tanks more than 10,000 hours of conversations with senior Executives and one Epiphany while no single conversation is guaranteed to change Thea trajectory of a career a business a marriage or a life any single conversation can Susan continues to share her expertise with clients through her her
• 02:00 - 02:30 thought leadership keynote presentations and award-winning books Susan welcome to HR works I'm delighted to be here Steve thank you if you would let's start by defining diversity in 2017 terms what all does the term Encompass today well you were you were correct earlier when you said it pretty much encompasses all of the ways in which we human beings differ
• 02:30 - 03:00 and there are so many variations on the theme um so it it just means that you know the doors are open to any and all and and we need to be welcoming and we need to be respectful and we need to be curious uh and we will benefit from that attitude and the behavior that goes along with it all right great and we also hear the term inclusion a lot is that the same as diversity or is there some
• 03:00 - 03:30 difference there's some difference there I mean you can have um a very diverse Workforce let's say but you still end up having The Usual Suspects at the table when you're making important decisions um and um that can be a huge huge Miss so inclusion you know it's like I get that I get that it's it's okay for me to be here at your company even though I'm look different than everybody else or
• 03:30 - 04:00 think differently than everybody else but how can you use me in deeper more meaningful ways so um what what one of the things that we're really teaching companies is how very important it is to have multiple competing perspectives present when important decisions are being made or um problems are being solved oh good so thanks for clarifying that now diversity let me say one other
• 04:00 - 04:30 thing about that if I may sorry to interrupt you but one one of the things that I think goes along with this is our belief that what gets talked about in a company and how it gets talked about and who is invited to the conversation is what determines what's going to happen and equally what is not going to happen so it's it's who's who's invited to be a part of the conversation okay thanks for that so
• 04:30 - 05:00 diversity has been around for a while why the sudden interest now why is it so critical to have a diverse Workforce in 2017 well our workplace survey on diversity inclusion found that over 40% of the respondents believe that their organizations would benefit from greater diversity as do we and this number increases to 55% amongst those who are 18 to 29 which is very telling I
• 05:00 - 05:30 think that number Rises dramatically for Millennial employees and by the way 80% of our employees here at fears are millennials they have a very different view of diversity than earlier Generations had they have grown up with diversity they have grown up with inclusion they don't understand what the issue is they they which is one of the things that I love about them when I even think about my own daughters and even my my my young very young
• 05:30 - 06:00 grandchildren they're in classes with um that are very diverse and everyone's opinion is valued and honored and there's just no discrimination if there's bullying it usually isn't so much around um um diversity as we think about it it's just about the mean girls picking on some bad you know easy prey or the bad boys picking on somebody that they think is not strong enough to fight back
• 06:00 - 06:30 so the Millennials have they they don't understand what the what the issue is um around inclusion and diversity which I find to be so refreshing yeah that's good news for sure now your research also found that employees were more likely to have been discriminated against over gender and political beliefs and that means employees face discrimination over political beliefs more fre quently than
• 06:30 - 07:00 discrimination over race religion or sexual orientation so what does that tell you about discrimination and what are the implications for the kind of training that organizations need well there's a there's a slight correction I want to make there it's not that we found that people are more likely to have been discriminated against over gender and political beliefs but we did find that 21% of the 1,000 people surveyed said they had been discriminated against because of gender
• 07:00 - 07:30 and 20% because of political belief so it is very real it's really really there and I think it's such a struggle because we have to understand especially right now with the huge Chasm between political parties just because someone voted for what I think is the wrong person does not mean that I have to put that person in a box that says they have nothing to offer I don't like them um there if they if they feel
• 07:30 - 08:00 this way about politics and any of their other opinions on any other topic must also be equally flawed so one of the big things at Fierce is we want everybody to understand that there are always going to be multiple competing realities existing simultaneously around almost any topic Under the Sun one of the images that we use is um a beach ball you know you think about an organization
• 08:00 - 08:30 as if it's a gigantic beach ball and beach balls have different colored stripes on them and every single person who works in the company is standing on a particular colored stripe and is experiencing the company from that perspective so if I as a CEO I'm standing on a blue stripe let's say I tend to think blue thoughts I tend to read blue reports I tend to have blue opinions I tend to make blue um suggestions and while I'm spouting off
• 08:30 - 09:00 about how blue the company is the guy that's living on the the green stripe or the red stripe or the yellow stripe is wondering but what about these other issues that are also true about the company so you know if you ask what color is the company who owns the truth about the company well no one person owns it there there are so many different truths and each person owns a piece of it and I always like to quote Andre Jed who was a French philosopher
• 09:00 - 09:30 and one of the many brilliant things he said was nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it's the only one you have so the expansion of yeah so the expansion of diversity must include diversity of thought because you can have a whole bunch of people who who look the same and have very different thinking or people who are looking very different but have the same thinking we
• 09:30 - 10:00 need to get to diversity of thought so that we can get it right for an organization I think a Leader's job is not to be right a Leader's job is to get it right and that requires really understanding what what is happening around a particular issue from multiples often competing perspectives thanks that beach ball image that's very helpful so then what
• 10:00 - 10:30 can employees do if they feel they're experiencing some kind of discrimination or witnessing discrimination what what should they do with such a situation well I would hope that what they would do is just go have the conversation with the person they feel is is behaving in the wrong way and and really have that directly face to face if at all possible um and just let this person know you know here here's what's
• 10:30 - 11:00 happened here's how it affected me can you tell me what what's going on with you and sadly a lot of people are afraid to do that um so they should definitely read chapter four in F conversations because it's like how do you have that conversation but um if they really feel that someone is unsafe and that they they won't be able to have or they tried to have a reasonable conversation and did not get anywhere then yeah they should go to to HR the thing is that
• 11:00 - 11:30 dialogue is so important and um just saying to someone look this is I want to talk with you about the effect that this particular Behavior or that this comment had on me or on somebody else you know here's an example of exactly what I mean and here's what I feel um was the effect and here's what I feel is at stake to gain or lose regarding this kind of comment or this
• 11:30 - 12:00 kind of behavior and I really want to resolve this um so you know please talk with me it's it's just a conversation it's not a fight it's not a um hurling an accusation it's not meant to be said with um flashing eyes and and or and tears and and red cheeks it's meant to be had calmly and respectfully this is what happened this is what this is what I feel is it stake you know what's going
• 12:00 - 12:30 on from where you sit and it's it's a very skillful invitation to someone to talk about it and you know you would you would think that we are all capable of doing this and I think we are but until people learn how to do it they they're they're they're afraid so there's a lot of fear about these kinds of conversations simply because people have never been taught how to have them and so that's one of the kinds of conversations that
• 12:30 - 13:00 we teach people how to have all right so a little more broadly if if we're talking about a workplace Diversity Program if a company wants to pay more attention to it it's going to be more than just training managers to be open to the opinions uh of others as you were mentioning but it's also going to go a little beyond that isn't it yeah it is you're right um just so let's say I am un involved enlightened
• 13:00 - 13:30 person who is open to other people's ideas that are different than mine and yet even even the most Savvy individual can without meaning to sometimes shut down the conversation you know let's say I've said let's say I'm running a meeting and I've said I I'm G to tell you what I think we should do and I want you to go you know challenge my thinking because I know not everybody feels the same way I do so here's what I think blah blah blah blah blah so what do you
• 13:30 - 14:00 guys think and then somebody finally says well I'm a little concerned about X and they put X on the table and then we say thanks for sharing that but and we go right on into rebuilding our own case again and we don't realize what we've just done is we we've we've said uh you're wrong or um apparently you haven't yet grasped the Brilliance of my thinking or um you you know I wasn't really asking I'm not really interested
• 14:00 - 14:30 in what you have to say but it is important for us to understand our biases and I know that we don't always even understand our biases um I just learned about a bias that I hadn't even realized um that and this is this this one comes from David Rock who's a Pioneer in brain science as it applies to leadership and he's saying there's this distance bias that we tend to want to hire people who are physically close
• 14:30 - 15:00 to us rather than far away I wouldn't even have thought of that when I was thinking about my own biases and what they might be and how I can um deal with them what do I need to do to shift you know to become a a more inclusive human being I wouldn't even have thought that I have a distance bias but I recognize it now that I know that it's out there I recognize it yeah I really love to work with people who are closer um even if they're not going to come
• 15:00 - 15:30 into the office but they're in the same city or whatever and that's just a a weird bias that I didn't even know was out there that apparently is out there so we do need to become aware of our biases and then you know in our we have on our leadership team we have all four generations and in Our Generations training we we take people through an exercise that ultimately it's a game that they play that ultimately helps them understand that we are actually
• 15:30 - 16:00 more alike than we are different that this the a lot of the same things are really really important to us and that's very helpful I remember going to a conference a year ago where we had a keynote speaker who started railing against Millennials and and a lot of us were cringing and then somebody stood up and said by the way I'm a millennial and I resent what you're saying and everybody applauded and you would not hear somebody I don't think you would
• 16:00 - 16:30 hear somebody making a statement like that today um if they did then they really have missed the boat so um you know it's it's just there's just so much about diversity and inclusion it's all of us all the time and when we're when we've got important decisions to make or problems to solve or strategies to design we need to be much more thoughtful about who's perspective would be valuable given that
• 16:30 - 17:00 X is the topic well thank you for how do we how do we when somebody does challenge our thinking how can we respond in a way that keeps that conversation going all right those are very helpful ideas have have you seen any specific activities or approaches for employers to take that that have been particularly successful well more and more employees are opening up to the value of the
• 17:00 - 17:30 diversity of thought and that that changes everything because you're going to find Brilliant people from every part of our diverse human population um they it there was just I had the laugh somebody sent me an article that was published in the Harvard Business Review by these two professors in England who did extensive studies and arrived at at the conclusion that and this was the
• 17:30 - 18:00 headline the title of their article um diversity of thought is helpful when solving problems and my reaction was well duh where you where have you been of course it is of course it is helpful in solving problems did it really take an article in the Harvard Business Review to get that point across or have you been simply a s at your desks all of your lives so I think people people more
• 18:00 - 18:30 and more are saying you know what it would not be a good thing if we had another 2008 Global financial crisis and and yet we still making a lot of the same mistakes we made that got us into that pickle where you had one person making the decisions and assuring everybody that all was well when the house was on fire so it's really important that people understand that
• 18:30 - 19:00 diversity of thought is just as important as any other kind of diversity and they are all important so how do we how do we take off our blinders and how do we invite more and more people to influence our thinking I mean if we're lucky we're going to be different when a conversation is over we're going to be different when a meeting ends because we've we've heard some things that we wouldn't have heard if we hadn't had a more diverse um group of people in the
• 19:00 - 19:30 room you can tell I'm a little passionate about this topic right yes yes well that's great for our listeners um now what if what if an organization uh doesn't really bother with diversity or doesn't make it a priority what sort of issues are going to arise what red flags could you look for oh they're going to be some very clear tells one one would be that only the usual suspects are invited to the table it's the same people the same flow
• 19:30 - 20:00 the same distractions the same argument for the same strategy which Nets the same outcomes we're committed to implementing option a while the guys in the warehouse are suggesting option two which could save us but they weren't invited to the meeting or you hear words like burning platform and Playbook the grandiose verbiage a special language spoken from the bully pulpit and you know it's an attempt to add weight to the task at hand to add importance to what we're doing like the wizard of ug
• 20:00 - 20:30 behind the curtain operating his Thunder machine and no one really buys it or you have prevalence of the corporate nod and this is a real thing so when people are asked what they think of the leader's ideas or plans heads lower around the table eyes are averted and if the leader calls on someone to speak he or she adopts a thoughtful expression and nods his or her head which is mistaken for agreement in actuality there's little or no agreement but since those who point out problems are considered
• 20:30 - 21:00 troublemakers nobody pushes back and one of the worst things is mita's abound Mita is a term from papaa New Guinea and it means that which everyone knows but no one speaks of and the health of any Community is judged by the number of moochas that exist within it so you know it's apparently also the name of an umbrella drink but I assume that's because when enough goes in the truth might come out I don't know and then you
• 21:00 - 21:30 know there's when we don't have real diversity and real inclusion there's going to be a gap between official truths and ground truths so when a company nears disaster people who work there admit they knew it was coming based on the reality with which they were confronted daily so in spite of the C's exhortations to the contrary the official truth all was not well at Enron Bear Sterns Fanny May Freddy Mech
• 21:30 - 22:00 Washington Mutual AIG GM Ford Chrysler you know now we've got I don't know what it is with the car industry but you know the billions that they're paying in fines because they were not dealing with the problem in fact we're just not even honest about it so you have that going on and you've got a dir of innovation without without you know without inclusion without diversity um we don't have The Innovation I mean we're we're being told everything's fine
• 22:00 - 22:30 tral la la uh we don't need your opinion you know we've got it covered implementation becomes very difficult because um you know we just I in fact I just read an article it was part of what came out in deoe um Global HR survey for this year they said that one of the big prices companies are paying is for something called creative dis agreement this is where the executives disagree with the
• 22:30 - 23:00 strategy and they're not really going to challenge the CEO and they're not really going to plant their flag because that's not the hill they're prepared to die on they're just not going to help and they're going to find ways to withdraw and ways to hold back and ways to just not really get on board and it's very very expensive and then um I mean there's there's a lot more but I could say one of the things that happens is we declare
• 23:00 - 23:30 war on the wrong things in a company you know the problem isn't here with me or with us it's over there it's you it's them it's that it's this it's production engineering versus manufacturing it's offshore rig versus the reservoir group it's sales versus merchandising it's our competition's brilliant products it's not our lack of innovation it's not our unworkable plan so you know I mean think about your organization if it was a car
• 23:30 - 24:00 would any of the warning lights be flashing red and if they might be um then who else needs to be brought to the table to help us get it right to make sure that we end up where we want to end up you know the whole premise of fierce was um courtesy actually of Ernest Hemingway and In The Sun Also Rises the character has asked how did you go bankrupt and he says gradually then
• 24:00 - 24:30 suddenly and I'm thinking that our careers and our companies and our relationships and our lives succeed or fail gradually then suddenly one conversation at a time so Fierce conversations is all about paying attention during gradually so that we end up at a wonderful suddenly that we can celebrate rather than a horrible suddenly that's now on YouTube that's going to cost us billions of dollars that a lot of people could have told us
• 24:30 - 25:00 were was was happening so you know there is so much at stake regarding diversity in all of its forms including especially right now diversity of thought and inclusion of the right people depending on the topic that's that's on the table well unfortunately I think I've been in all those meetings you were describing at one time or another we all have we all have yep so I hope I've been to my last one um are there any metrics
• 25:00 - 25:30 or other kinds of measurements that you use to evaluate in organizations I don't know I guess I might call it a diversity quotient or something we don't have um a specific metric that we gauge it's often Case by case but we do believe that diversity of thought has the capacity to move all of a company's critical kpis forward so if you know they when we're working
• 25:30 - 26:00 with a company and they're saying you know we're coming to you because we we want to improve diversity and inclusion um we have to make sure that they understand that we're talking about diversity of thought as well as all of these other things it's just like in my second book Fierce leadership one of the things everybody had Employee Engagement programs and they had all these programs about Employee Engagement but but they didn't actually engage the employees so
• 26:00 - 26:30 they talked about it a lot and there was an awareness that it was an issue but they didn't their behavior didn't do anything to really engage employees so it's the same for me it's the same with this we can talk about diversity and inclusion all day long and unless you're prepared to actually behave in a way that that demonstrates inclusiveness and the value of diversity then it's just all air and you know people can see
• 26:30 - 27:00 through that they they see right through it and and they won't stay we just had one of our largest clients I mean this is a huge huge company one of the biggest in the world just lost several of their senior female Executives and they won't even talk about why people are forbidden to ask about it everybody was simply told that these women left because of a better you know different opportunity ities there's more going on right there there's more
• 27:00 - 27:30 going on than anybody knows and um it probably has something to do with the glass ceiling for women is my is my guess knowing that company as well as I know that company wow so uh I mean they're they're struggling they're going to lose more women too I think I have noticed that your organization has been selected to the 100 best companies to work for in Washington and I makes me wonder is
• 27:30 - 28:00 diversity now a uh an imperative for organizations that are striving for that best company to work for a status well I don't know if it's actually a question I don't think it is on the Ser you know the way you end up on that list is a survey an anonymous survey is sent out to everybody in they Philadelphia and it isn't on there and yet it's kind
• 28:00 - 28:30 of it it's it reveals itself in some of the other questions because some of the questions have to do with um communication and how included people are in meetings and how much um honesty and authenticity how much cander is there do they feel like they really know what's going on do they feel like they're um a valued member of the organization whose work is valued whose
• 28:30 - 29:00 opinion is valued and so it it shows up um in other categories and it you know it may over time end up being one of the very specific questions but it definitely you can you can trace easily you can trace how companies are investing or not investing in those areas well you mentioned kandor and that uh leads me to this final question that I have I introduced you as someone who
• 29:00 - 29:30 says the things that can't be said so can you reveal an example of something that can't be said oh yes there have been so many things that can't be said and I sometimes I wonder about that because they can be said but PE but everybody thinks no I we can't say those so um let me just get let me just hop over to the personal side of life for a
• 29:30 - 30:00 second I remember I was working with a bunch of CEOs who we were sort of sitting around a campfire um literally sitting around a campfire and one of the CEO said I don't know what to do I mean I I I really love my life but I'm not happy and I don't think I could stay and I don't know what to say to her and I said why don't you say I love you and I don't love our life together I mean that is a hard thing to say uh you know I'm not happy in this relationship that is a hard thing to say
• 30:00 - 30:30 on the personal side on the business side it's hard to say this strategic plan that we all bought in on and we're we all are accountable for certain parts of it I believe it's flawed um I think that I think that we our reality has shifted and no plan survives its collision with reality and I think I think our plan has collided with a reality that you know means we're going to have to adjust completely and
• 30:30 - 31:00 that's hard to say when a company is way down the road on something years ago I was working with a team at Microsoft who they were GNA they were just about to launch a a cell phone that was mostly going to be for teens and yet there uh the battery didn't last very long and it was very very expensive and I remember saying to them this is not going to go well because people aren't going to buy it and they said said well we're going to launch it because it's really great and they launched it and two weeks later
• 31:00 - 31:30 they took it off the market because it it it didn't it didn't work so you know saying saying this isn't working this product isn't good enough or it's flaw or our service there's something wrong I'm hoping that I'm hoping that United Airlines is having a conversation right now and saying some of the things that can't be said saying no to a client uh sometimes you know customers understandably uh want you to
• 31:30 - 32:00 give them the sun moon and stars for absolutely nothing and no profit at all and sometimes you have to say you know I'm sorry we've left to help you and we're not a non-for-profit we're we we've got to make money in this deal too and and this is just you know it's not going to work so saying no to a client can be very difficult or even saying sometimes what happens for us as the client will call because you know this is what we need and as we question
• 32:00 - 32:30 and go deeper and deeper and deeper we recognize that they need something else first and we want to help them with the whole thing we want to make sure that they go after the the real issue not the symptom of the issue so so that's that's a thing when you're saying you know what you're describing are the symptoms but I don't think that's the real problem I think the problem is over here you know what do you think about that that's difficult it can feel
• 32:30 - 33:00 risky I remember saying to one of my CEOs I want to talk with you about what I suspect is a drinking problem that you have and he absolutely blew up he was just furious in the next month when I saw him and asked what we should talk about he said we should talk about my drinking problem you know you have you have to sometimes you have to set aside being liked uh in the moment for what you think is
• 33:00 - 33:30 the best thing for this human being or for this organization instead of narrow self-interest instead of protecting myself at all costs and never saying anything that's controversial even if I believe it so strongly it's coursing through my blood but if I'm holding it in then I'm just pretending I don't even exist half the time and I'm not bringing value to an organization so there are many many things that we think sometimes can't be said and so therefore
• 33:30 - 34:00 nothing is going to change and we're just going to pay steeper and steeper prices until we might end up arriving at a very negative suddenly well Susan it's uh it's easy to see why the CEOs find uh Fierce helpful thanks so much for joining us today and uh providing these very helpful insights I just want to let your listeners know that on May 2nd a revised
• 34:00 - 34:30 version of fierce conversations will be available um and I've really you know I wrote the original book 15 years ago and a lot has changed in our world since then so there are quite a few new areas and deeper thoughts and so May 2nd look for fierce conversations new new revised version Fierce conversations okay thanks very much listeners you're welcome listeners
• 34:30 - 35:00 please let me know what HR work should cover next s Bruce atr.com thanks for listening this is Steve Bruce for HR works the opinions expressed on HR Works do not represent legal or any other type of professional advice and should not be used as a substitute for legal advice from a qualified attorney licens in your [Music] state